AC Transit To Pay $2.5 Million To Bicyclist Hurt In Crash With Bus

EMERYVILLE (KPIX 5) -- AC Transit will pay more than $2 million to a bicyclist after she was struck by a bus more than three years ago.

Cara McClendon was riding her bike along San Pablo Avenue in Emeryville on July 17, 2012 when an AC Transit driver taking a turn three times faster than the agency's internal regulations allowed plowed into her.

Cara suffered multiple fractures to her face, and mild traumatic brain injury.

Doctors at Oakland's Highland Hospital placed her in a medically induced coma for twelve days.

"Cara knows that she'll never quite be the same.  Things come a little bit harder.  It takes more energy, and she gets more tired to do the basic things she likes to do," Cara's Attorney Carter Zinn said.

The AC Transit board approved a $2.5 million settlement for Cara, because of both the crash, and the driver's past problems.

"For this bus driver, almost from the day she started work, there was a history of insubordination, of yelling at supervisors, on a few occasions yelling at vehicles on the roadway and yelling expletives as she was passing," Zinn said.

Zinn says Cara is getting on with her life, and is back on her bike.